


Your 'friendship' means everything to me

by BringTheStorm



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Also Alya and Nino trying to wingman, Canon Rewrite, Episode: s02 Glaciator, Episode: s03 La Marionnettiste 2 | The Puppeteer 2, F/M, Identity Reveal, Marinette Dupain-Cheng Finds Out First, Now I'm a little upset because the only reason that this didn't happen was Manon, SERIOUSLY Manon?!?, because why not, let's mess with canon, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 14:02:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29885670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BringTheStorm/pseuds/BringTheStorm
Summary: Marinette frantically trying to stop an awkward conversation accidentally leads to Adrien saying something that sounds familiar...Something that her superhero partner said to her several months ago on a rooftop in ParisAKA Let's turn my least favorite episode into an identity reveal
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 30
Kudos: 154





	Your 'friendship' means everything to me

Marinette officially wanted to die.

Why had she agreed to come anyway? She was supposed to be at home watching Manon and making the little girl a superhero costume.

Instead, she was in the car having one of the MOST AWKWARD conversations ever.

Alya and Nino had been whispering the entire trip, and Manon had apparently decided that it was her duty to intervene.

“Hey!” She protested to something Marinette couldn’t hear. “Why are you leaving Marinette all alone? Don't you like her?”

Marinette turned away from the fascinating view of yet another row of apartment buildings and glanced suspiciously at her best friend.

“What are you guys talking about?”

_ This better not be what she thought this was. _

Nino jumped. “Nothing! It's got nothing to do with us leaving you and Adrien alone-”

Alya elbowed him in the ribs.

_ Yep, her suspicions were correct _ .

He chuckled nervously. “Uh...! To... look at the statues as, uh, just friends, of course.”

Of course, Adrien decided to get involved. 

“Don't worry, Manon,” he reassured the young girl. “It's just that Alya and Nino are boyfriend and girlfriend, and they probably wanna spend some time alone together. Without us.”

At least he hadn’t caught on.

“Really? But I thought you and Marinette were boyfriend and girlfriend?” Manon said curiously. “She has lots of photos of you all over her bedroom.”

Marinette had never wanted to kill the little girl more. Her cheeks grew warm as she fumbled for an excuse.

But since the love of her life was the most oblivious person on the planet, he just laughed it off.

“That's because she loves fashion and I'm a fashion model.”

This boy was going to be the death of her.

Marinette could see Manon was about to speak up again. They were already pushing the limits of the things Adrien wouldn’t catch on to.

“Let’s play the quiet game,” she whispered in the girl’s ear. “First one to talk loses.”

Manon grinned, showing off her mouth of crooked teeth. “I love this game!”

“Three, two, one… go!” She whispered back.

Both she and Manon clamped their mouths shut.

But Adrien was still going.

“Besides,” he continued. “Marinette and I are just friends.” He flashed her a warm smile. A sincere one, not one of his perfected model smiles. “And just like with any of my friends, her friendship means everything to me.”

It was a normal enough comment, but it was enough to make the aspiring fashion designer freeze.

_ Her friendship means everything to me. _

The words echoed in her mind, and she wasn’t sure why.

_ Her friendship means everything to me. _

Normally, the words would have been like a stab to the chest. Another ‘just a friend’ comment that she would cry about later in her room.

But her mind couldn’t let go of these words. It was twisting them. Trying to force them through some wall she hadn’t realized she had built.

They reminded her of something… but what was it?

A flash of a moonlit rooftop. Those words coming from another boy with a sweet smile, despite the flash of pain in his eyes.

_ I get it, Ladybug. Your friendship means everything to me. _

Another boy with blonde hair and green eyes.

And with a click, made sense. There weren’t two diffrent boys. 

They were one and the same.

Her gaze flickered down to the silver ring on his finger. It looked exactly like how she imagined Chat’s miraculous would look when it was camouflaged.

Adrien was turned into a glitter statue when Style Queen attacked. Chat Noir didn’t show.

They both were allergic to pigeon feathers.

Chat somehow got inside the school, but Horrificator had sealed everyone in.

The more she thought about it, the more it made sense.

And that’s when she realized that everyone was staring at her.

“Are you okay?” Nino asked hesitantly. “You kind of zoned out there.”

“For ten minutes,” Alya added.

Marinette smiled sheepishly, trying to hide her inner panic.

The car parked in front of the Musée Grévin. A woman with shoulder length brown hair and tiger print glasses was waiting for Adrien.

While she explained how someone had vandalized his statue by literally removing his arm, Marinette pulled Alya aside.

“Listen,” she hissed. “I don’t know what wingmanning you two have planned, but you had better call it off right now.”

“Girl, you can’t just chicken out,” Alya groaned.

“I’m not!” she protested.

Alya stared at her disbelievingly.

“I’m  _ not _ ,” she repeated. “I promise this isn’t like the last 562 times. I have a plan.”

“That’s what you said the last seventeen times,” her best friend pointed out. 

“I’m serious!” Marinette said, seriously.

Alya rolled her eyes, but agreed. “I’ll watch Manon for you while you chat with Adrien.”

While she  _ chat _ ted with Adrien.

Her partner’s puns really were getting to her.

She got down on her knees to talk to Manon.

“You see my friend here?” She said, gesturing to Alya. “She’s actually the Fairy Princess Unicorn of the faraway kingdom of Sparkles. Do you remember her?”

Manon giggled. “You lost our quiet game!”

“You’re right,” Marinette laughed. “I did lose the game. Now, can you play with Alya for me?”

Manon nodded, and proceeded to tackle Alya.

“Are you going to tell him  _ right now?” _ Alya whisper shouted. Luckily, the boys were far enough ahead that they didn’t hear them.

“Not yet,” Marinette hissed back. “I need a minute to mentally prepare myself.”

She ducked into the nearest doorway and pulled out her purse.

Tikki stuck her head out once Alya was out of earshot.

“Adrien is Chat Noir,” Marinette told her.

Tikki smiled weakly. “I don’t suppose I could convince you that you’re wrong?”

“What should I tell him?” she panicked. “I literally rejected him, for him.” Marinette buried her face in her hands. “This is  _ the worst _ .”

Tikki watched her holder freak out over the thing she had been hinting at for months.

“He’s going to be so disappointed that I’m Ladybug,” she started pacing, ignoring the judgmental stare of the statue of Gabriel Agreste. “I can’t believe that I broke the one rule. And now I’m going to have to give up my miraculous! And so will Adrien! He’s going to be so sad and he’ll hate me forever and-”

“Marinette,” Tikki interrupted. “Are you going to tell him you’re Ladybug?”

The girl froze. “Should I not?”

“No!” Tikki explained. “It would only be worse if you lied. Go and talk to him. We’ll work out the details later.”

Marinette sighed with relief. She grabbed the kwami and kissed her gently on the top of her head.

“Thank you, Tikki,” she breathed. “What would I do without you?”

The kwami hugged her cheek. “Well, you wouldn’t be Ladybug for one thing.”

***

Nino had been acting weird since they had gotten to the museum and Adrien was determined to get to the bottom of it.

Thankfully, he was pretty sure he had an idea of what was going on.

“So if I’ve got this right, you and Alya wanna spend some alone time together, yeah?”

He deserved a prize for excellent social interaction mystery solving. 

Nino chuckled nervously. “Not at all! That's not why we came here at all.”

Never mind then.

Adrien wasn’t entirely sure, but he was fairly certain that this was the kind of thing you should be embarrassed if you thought you were wrong about. Still, Nino was a great friend for coming just to hang out. 

“Oh! Well, then it's real nice of you guys to come here just to keep me company.”

Nino looked absolutely terrified. 

“That's not why we came here at all, either!”

_...Okay? _

What else were they here for? Adrien thought back to the car ride where Marinette had literally frozen for at least ten minutes. 

“Really? So why did you want to come here then? Did it have something to do with Marinette?”

Nino glanced back at his girlfriend. Adrien turned around just in time to see her making a cutting gesture telling him to stop something, 

His best friend looked at Alya in confusion, but Manon practically tackled her.

Wait… where was Marinette?

“Um, Alya?” Adrien asked. “Where did Marinette go?”

She struggled to get away from the little girl. “She, um, had to use the bathroom?”

Marinette came racing back, almost running into a statue of XY. 

“I’m here!” she called. 

Unfortunately, she wasn’t looking where she was going and tripped over her own feet. 

“Whoa!” She cried, tumbling towards the staircase. 

Determined not to let his friend fall, and potentially seriously injure herself, he blocked her fall with his body, helping her regain her balance.

She squeaked nervously. “Thanks Chatdrien. Adrichat, I mean, uh,” she paused, and took a deep breath. “Thank you,” she said, in a sincere tone that only she could master. 

“Anytime,” Adrien said, helping her to her feet.

Marinette turned a cute shade of bright pink and hurried back to Manon and Alya. 

Together they stepped onto the elevator. With Alya, Nino and Marinette exchanging a glance that meant something that he didn’t understand.

Finally they reached the workshop. 

“Welcome!” Véronique announced. “This is where our sculptors create and repair all of our statues.”

Adrien shifted uncomfortably as he realized exactly who he was going to be working with today. 

He knew that Théo didn’t know that he was the hero who had gotten him akumatized, but it was still a little hard to see him without his stomach tying itself into guilty knots. 

“So I heard we have to do your hand again,” Théo said, oblivious to his discomfort. “Right, Véronique?”

The woman nodded, pulling out a chair and gesturing for Adrien to sit, while his friends got to explore the workshop. 

That settled it. Next time he came here, he wanted Nino to be the famous one, so  _ he  _ could explore. 

Adrien tried not to squirm as Théo stuck his hand inside of this weird box thing and poured wax inside. 

The guilty memory of the day, mixed with his hatred of being trapped rolled together and he glanced enviously at his friend's freedom. 

Marinette explored the craft supplies and had a whispered discussion with Alya in a corner, while Manon explored a box of fake eyeballs, failing to notice Nino creeping beside the statues in an attempt to prank the little girl.

Nino caught Adrien watching him, and pressed a finger to his lips, adjusting his cap before freezing.

Véronique smirked at his antics, and pulled out her phone as she got some sort of message. 

“We have to leave you for a while, if you don't mind,” she explained. 

Oh, Adrien minded. She was planning on leaving him with his arm trapped in a box, and the memory of a huge mistake.

Théo pulled a timer off of a shelf, and set it on the table next to him. “It'll ding when it's over. We'll be back as soon as possible.”

Never mind then.

“Take your time,” Adrien reassured them, finally able to relax once the sculptor was gone. 

He didn’t resent Théo for being akumatized, or any of the ways he had made Chat’s life harder that day. He still wasn’t exactly sure what he had been thinking that day, when he had exaggerated his relationship with Ladybug. Adrien had managed to get his jealousy under control by now, even though technically, there was nothing to be jealous of. 

You kind of had to get used to it when half the city had a crush on Ladybug. 

Manon finally noticed the Nino “statue” and gasped. “Oh! I didn't know Nino was a famous person, too!”

Nino winked at Adrien (which was normal enough statue behavior that Manon didn’t catch on), and jumped toward the little girl.

“Boo!”

Manon giggled. “My turn! My turn! I wanna play statues, too!” She grabbed her babysitter’s hand. “Marinette! Let’s go play hide and seek and statues in the museum!”

Marinette shook her head. “We can’t, Manon. We came here to keep Adrien company.”

The little girl crossed her arms and sighed dramatically.

Alya and Nino exchanged a look.

“Alya, no!” Marinette hissed, clearly in on the secret.

“Alya, yes!” The reporter said, smirking. She bent down until she was the same height as the little girl. “We'll play with you. Marinette, you take good care of Adrien. He must not get bored a single second!”

Alya practically dragged her very confused boyfriend and an overeager Manon out the door. The door shut with a menacing  _ click! _

This was obviously helping Adrien’s claustrophobia.

“Uh, what?” Marinette panicked, running towards the door. “But I—! No! Don't leave me alone with him!”

Okay,  _ that  _ hurt. 

Marinette winced as she turned towards him. “I mean— That's not what I meant to say... I just... I…”

Now he had definitely figured it out. 

“Are you mad at me, Marinette?”

Marinette tripped over a bucket of fake eyes, spilling them all over the floor. Adrien moved to help her, but his arm was still stuck in the box. 

“No! Of course not!” She said, picking up the eyes one by one and sticking them back in the bucket. “Why would you say that?”

“You’ve been acting weird ever since the car ride,” Adrien reminded her.

Marinette winced. “Yeah, sorry about that.”

“Whatever happened, I’m sorry,” he apologized. “Your friendship means everything to me-”

Marinette flinched. “There it is again.”

Adrien blinked. “What?”

She took a deep breath. “In the car, you said those words. And you reminded me of someone else who said those words to me, but in a sadder tone.”

Wait…  _ that _ was what was wrong?

“Who?” He asked.

She sighed. “It would be better to show you.”

Marinette pulled up a chair and sat across from him.

“You see, there’s this boy I…”

Adrien froze, something was off here. Still, he couldn’t stop himself from asking, “There's a boy? Who is...?”

Marinette smiled shyly. 

“It's— I can't tell you who it is. We can't know anything about each other. Our identities must remain a secret. We're both superheroes, Cat Noir. We don't have a choice.”

He gaped at her.

“What-”

She fiddled some earrings he hadn’t noticed her wearing before.

Suddenly, everything made sense. Her odd behavior, the way she kept disappearing during akuma attacks, how she got to attacks at their school so fast.

She knew that he knew too. And she was watching his mind explode.

He took a deep breath, and finished the memory.

“I get it, Ladybug. Your friendship means everything to me. You can keep the rose. It goes with your costume.”

They both stared at each other for a long minute, trying to figure out how the person before them was also their superhero partner.

Marinette, or Ladybug fidgeted with her pigtails.

“A-are you upset?”

_ What? _

He laughed. Once. Awkwardly.

“You’re kidding, right?” 

She stared at him, with the same bluebell eyes as the ones that rolled at his purrfect puns.

“I’m the one who wanted to reveal our identities,” he reminded her. “If anyone should be upset right now, it's you.”

She curled herself into a ball, wrapping her arms around her legs.

“I’m not upset,” she admitted. “Just scared. I can’t lose Tikki, and now we’re in more danger than we’ve ever been and-”

“We’ll get through this, m’lady,” he promised. “Just like we always do.”

Plagg phased through his shirt smirking. “You finally figured it out.”

“This is a stressful time for them,” Tikki reminded him.

Plagg rolled his eyes. “It doesn’t have to be. We aren’t going to let the Guardian take their miraculous, and as long as they act like they have no idea who each other are, they should be in about as much danger from Hawkmoth as they’ve always been.”

The timer finally  _ mercifully _ chimed, and Marinette (LADYBUG!) helped him take his arm out.

Adrien froze at a memory. He buried his head in his hands. 

“I tried to impress you during the fight with Evilliustrator,” he groaned. “You were probably laughing at me the whole time.”

Marinette snickered.

“I tried to set you up with Nino,” Adrien cried. 

“I’m still upset you were right,” Marinette admitted. 

He turned toward her in confusion.

“ _ You realize that we might know each other in normal life _ ,” she mimicked. 

He crossed his arms. “I do not sound like that.”

She snickered. “You totally do.”

“ _ Lucky charm! _ ” He called. “ _ Our identities must remain a secret! Chat Noir, you’re the best partner ever! _ ”

She shoved him, laughing.

“Remember when we first met,” she said, wheezing. “I almost introduced myself as Marinette!”

“ _ I’m Ma- er, madly clumsy,”  _ he teased. “ _ I’m so clumsy.” _

“Was I wrong?” she demanded.

And just like that, the tension was broken.

He snorted. “I remember thinking, after the design contest, that it was a good thing that you weren’t Ladybug, because Ladybug would have caught on for sure.”

Marinette groaned. “I forgot about that. It’s so obvious, now that I think back on it.”

Adrien glared at Plagg. “This explains why you kept being all obnoxious about Marinette not being ‘just a friend.’”

And just like that, it was awkward again.

“The boy,” he asked, feeling his heart crumble into a thousand pieces. “He’s Luka, right?”

Plagg groaned. “How much more oblivious can you get?”

“Shh!” Tikki hissed. 

Marinette played with her pigtails nervously.

“No, he's not,” she said. “If he was, don’t you think I’d be dating him by now?”

“Have you told him?” Adrien asked. “The boy, I mean?”

Marinette’s smile faded. 

“No,” she admitted. “It’s just, under the mask I’m just me. I’m not amazing, or confident. I’m just a girl who accidentally ended up with the earrings when I stopped Master Fu from getting run over by a car.”

Marinette hugged herself and stared at the ground. 

Adrien gaped at her. Was that really what she thought?

Tikki opened up her mouth to protest, but Plagg stopped her. 

“Let my kid handle this,” he murmured. 

Adrien stepped towards her, and hesitantly placed a hand on her shoulder. 

“Hey,” he said gently. “I don’t know why you think that, but you’re wrong.”

Marinette glanced up at him, so he kept going. “And not just a little wrong, but like  _ extremely,  _ fundamentally wrong. Which is something I never thought I’d be saying about you, since Ladybug is right about almost everything.”

That got her to smile at least. 

“When I first met you. One of my first impressions of you was that there was NO WAY I would ever be as great a superhero as you.”

“That’s not true,” she protested. “You’re just as great a hero-”

“Not the point,” he cut her off. “And then, when I met you again as Marinette, you were just so confident and amazing. When you thought I had put the gum on your seat-”

“Sorry about that,” Marinette jumped in.

“No interrupting,” he ordered. “Anyway, you told me exactly what you thought and you were amazing.”

Her beautiful bluebell eyes met his as he tried to force her to understand.

“You are the girl I fell for and am still in love with, whether or not you’re wearing the mask.”

Marinette froze. She gaped at him for a long moment. 

He shifted awkwardly. “So, um, yeah. All I’m trying to say is that anyone would be  _ thrilled _ to be THAT BOY; and if they aren’t, just know that I’ll always be here for you m’lady.”

Finally, the uncertainty faded from her face, replaced by the raw determination he had always admired. 

“You’re right, kitty,” she decided. “I’m going to tell him at the next chance I get.”

Adrien ignored the way his heart was breaking. Anything to make his lady happy.

Would she still be his lady after she told THE BOY that she loved him?

Just then, a familiar looking supervillain burst through the door.

“Hawkmoth?” They both asked in unison.

The supervillain remained uncharastically silent. He raised his cane, and slammed it down towards them.

Adrien tackled Marinette out of the way.

Hawkmoth slashed it towards them, and he grabbed a backup version of Aurore Beauréal’s umbrella to deflect the strikes. 

“Marinette, get out of here!” He ordered, struggling against the weight of Hawkmoth’s attacks.

She dove behind a pile of statues.

A shout of “TIKKI! SPOTS ON!” followed by a bright pink light miraculously went unnoticed by Hawkmoth.

Ladybug emerged from behind the stack. Wild coincidence.

Hawkmoth took advantage of his distraction to knock him to the ground. He raised his cane to strike, but Ladybug’s Yo-yo pried it from his grasp.

“Get out of here!” She shouted to him. 

Adrien dove behind the same pile and transformed. He emerged just in time for him to see Ladybug’s yo-yo cut the _ statue  _ of Hawkmoth into four large chunks.

“That makes sense,” Chat Noir admitted. “I don’t think he could go that long without threatening to take our miraculous.”

A voice crackled over the intercom. 

“What do you do when no one wants to play with you?” Manon said. “You play with them. I’m Puppeteer and I want to play with you and my statues.”

“Thanks for your help Kitty,” Ladybug said, getting up on her tiptoes and kissing him on the cheek. “Just so you know, you were THAT BOY all along.”

Her face flushed and she ran out of the room. “C’mon! There’s a little girl at stake!”

Wait…

WHAT?

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic that I've published online, but not the first I've written (but I'm still dying inside)
> 
> I respect the show's writers decision, but if you didn't get secondhand embarrassment from this scene you either don't experience this disease called emotions, deal with it a lot (I'm sorry!) or you aren't actually human.  
> I don't love the show any less, but my brain kind of assaulted me until I wrote this. 
> 
> (NOW YOU CAN LEAVE ME ALONE BRAIN!)
> 
> If you liked it please leave kudos or comments!


End file.
